Random Thinking

Beth and her friend Vicky went to see the group NovemberKills headline at a concert this past weekend. They both had a great time seeing the groups that performed. There were about eight groups there including Big City Lights and This Ship Will Sail. Adventures Of, a group of kids from Beth’s high school were supposed to be there but they didn’t make it. Vicky used my camera phone to take some pictures.

Beth has been doing a great job playing the guitar. Her teacher says that when she learns the next song, a Led Zeppelin song – Over The Hills And Far Away – she will be promoted to guitarist and will no longer be a beginner. She has been lazy about practicing since school ended though, she sleeps until about 2 in the afternoon, so I need to start reminding her that she won’t get better if she doesn’t practice.

Tags: NovemberKills, music, guitar lessons

Random Thinking – Blog Archive – Nice Pants

An update on the pants story… the judge found for the dry cleaners and ordered the plaintiff, Roy Pearson, to pay all the costs for the dry cleaners to defend themselves. Pearson has filed for bankruptcy to avoid having to pay.

Fer-De-Lance
by Rex Stout

Nero Wolfe is one of the most famous detectives in fiction. Wolfe is a genius for solving murders but that is not what makes these books worth reading. It is Wolfe’s eccentricities combined with the narration of Wolfe’s assistant, Archie Goodwin. Rex Stout displays clever and funny writing (especially the dialogs), to keep the story moving. Nero Wolfe is, of course, the incredibly obese detective who rarely leaves his apartment in Manhattan but sends Archie Goodwin, (his hardboiled, skirt-chasing assistant) to gather evidence for him so that Wolfe can sit in his chair and solve the case.

Fer-De-Lance is the first book in the Nero Wolfe series (there are 73 in the series) and it is amazing how fully developed the characters were even in this first book. It has been said that that you can pick up any of the novels in any order and you won’t feel out of place. In this story, Wolfe is short of money (a perennial problem as he lives in an expensive apartment, with a chef, a gardener to maintain his precious orchids, and Archie on staff). Wolfe first needs to find a case that can pay him enough and he is lucky enough to find a convenient murder and even better he has a clue that the police don’t have as he knows another murder is linked to the first. Slowly, and yet inexorably, Wolfe reels in the murderer and solves the case.

But solving the murder is only a small part of the story. It is the narration of Archie Goodwin, the wonderful dialog, and the uniqueness of Nero Wolfe, that make this a fun story to read. There is little mystery in the actual murder but watching Wolfe crack the case and figure out how to get the evidence against the killer is pure joy.

It was 43 years ago this past Friday that three men who were trying to help black people in Mississippi register to vote, were murdered by the Klan. It was June 22, 1964 when James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were arrested, held for several hours, and then handed over to the KKK. They were beaten and then killed, their bodies buried in a berm in the woods near Philadelphia, Mississippi. It took six weeks for the FBI to find the bodies even though the killers had bragged about the murders and virtually everyone in the area knew where the bodies were buried. It took 41 years to convict Edgar Ray Killen, the man who planned the murder of these men, and even then, a jury refused to find him guilty of murder but would only convict him of manslaughter. The judge, however, was less unsure and sentenced Killen to 60 years, 20 for each murder.

What amazes me is that this happened, not in some far off time in some far off land, but in the United States and within my lifetime. This article about the killings was written by someone who was involved in the Civil Rights movement back in 1964 and was in Mississippi when Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered. It is well worth reading.

Monday through Friday I drive on the Long Island Expressway (LIE) to get to work. It’s a 30 minute commute each way and it is just about all on the Expressway. My office is right off the Expressway service road and my house is about 1/2 mile from the Expressway. So I do a lot of highway driving and I like to just get on the highway, move over to the left lane, and just phase out. The world around me disappears and my mind floats along from thought to thought as I just zoom along the road.

To help this happen, I have developed three rules for driving on the highway that would make my life much easier if everyone would follow.

Rule number 1: If someone is trying to get on the highway, let them in. I hate when people speed up as I am coming along on the entrance ramp. You don’t lose points for being a nice guy so there is no reason to be rude. What I especially hate is when the guy who is trying to keep me from getting on the highway is trying to get off the highway! Since a lot of entrance ramps on the Expressway turn into exit ramps, the situation comes up quite often where I am trying to get on the highway, and someone else is trying to get off. Instead of slowing down and letting me in and slipping in behind me, he tries to force his way in front of me. What I have found is that the best way to get them is to simply not let them in even if that means exiting off the highway. Since the exits simply go to the service road, I can just stay on the service road to the next entrance. But the dope is forced to miss his exit and turn around at the next exit. Ha Ha!

Rule number 2: Unless you are a doctor or a mechanic intending to stop, there is no reason for you to slow down to look at accidents off the side of the road ESPECIALLY when they are on the other side of the road! I hate when this happens and I am, sure you do to… you are speeding along and suddenly there is a big traffic slowdown. You proceed for 15 minutes until you finally see that the problem is that there is an ambulance on the other side of the highway and everyone is slowing down to look. I once say a taxi almost cause an accident because he was so intently looking at the car with the flat tire on the other side of the road that he failed to notice he was veering into the next lane. Stop doing that. Just keep your eyes on the road and your foot on the gas.

Rule number 3: If you are going to drive in the left lane, you can’t drive slower than the traffic in the center lane. That seems so simple a rule but I see it violated every day. A car will be sitting in the left lane driving 50 mph without another car in front of them for a mile but a huge line of cars behind them forcing everyone into the center lane to pass them. And if I am zooming along in the left lane, don’t jump in front of me and then go 20 mph slower than I was going. OK? There is one exception to this rule and it comes with a little story. Once upon a time when my sister lived in Geneva, NY, Michel and I were driving to visit her. We used to go through Pennsylvania and then up through Binghamton. We were in the backwoods of nowhere Pennsylvania and I was in the left lane zooming along and there was a car in the right lane, also zooming along, but going not quite as fast as I was going. Suddenly the other car veered in front of me and hit his brakes forcing me to slow down all the way to the speed limit. While I thought of the appropriate evil thing to say about his parentage, I noticed that he had a radar detector sitting on his dashboard. And sure enough a few seconds later we passed a patrol car sitting along the shoulder of the road. I never found out who that person was, but a big thank you goes out to him!

The picture up above, by the way, is the Long Island Expressway near exit 49, just a short way from my house. The hills in the background are among the tallest hills on Long Island, at about 150 feet.

Henna tattoos look attractive and seem much safer than the real thing. And since they are only temporary, you don’t have to worry about being stuck with a tattoo you don’t like. But there is a serious problem with henna tattoos, at least the black henna tattoos.

Henna by itself is generally safe. Natural henna is a green color that dries to a dark brown or orange color. The problem is that people want the bold look of black henna and the only way to get that is to mix henna with a chemical called Para-phenylenediamine (PPD). The problem is that many people are allergic to PPD and the results can be very bad. It starts with permanent scarring and just gets worse. Since the amount of PPD in black henna tattoos is so high, it can cause a permanent sensitivity to anything containing PPD (certain antibiotics and anesthetics), anything containing henna (some hair dyes), or anything containing the other chemicals related to either PPD or henna (PABA sun screen and some cosmetics).

This is specific to the black henna tattoos. It should be noted that the FDA has not approved PPD for use on the skin. It is a coal-tar based product that has been approved only for use on the hair. So think twice before getting a henna tattoo. Wildwood, New Jersey has banned all henna tattooing because there is no way to determine which contain PPD and which do not. Perhaps you should ban henna tattoos in your home, also.

I’m not sure what any of this means or even if it means anything but…

The AP, using US Census Bureau statistics, determined which states have the lowest divorce rates and which states have the highest. So go ahead, take a stab at guessing which state has the lowest divorce rate… I’ll give you a hint, it’s probably not the state you think it is… Got a state in mind? The answer is:

Massachusetts. Yes, that is correct. The liberal, gay marriage loving state of Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the nation. Texas, the home of our Commander-in-Chief, has the highest rate in the nation. In fact, all the Northeast liberal states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont) had significantly lower divorce rates than so-called Bible Belt states (Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas).

So what makes the difference? Why do Southern Baptists divorce at a higher rate than Northeast liberal Catholics (29% vs. 21%)? It seems to be education. From the Boston Globe:

The liberals from Massachusetts have long prided themselves on their emphasis on education, and it has paid off: People who stay in school longer get married at a later age, when they are more mature, are more likely to secure a better job, and job income increases with each level of formal education. As a result, Massachusetts also leads in per capita and family income while births by teenagers, as a percent of total births, was 7.4 for Massachusetts and 16.1 for Texas.

If your dry cleaners lost your pants, how much do you think they would owe you? $25? $50? $100? How about $54 million? That is what Roy Pearson is suing his local dry cleaner for because they didn’t live up to their “satisfaction guaranteed” sign.

Pearson said the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Act, under which he is suing Custom Cleaners, should grant a customer whatever he or she wants if there is a “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign.

Yes, you read that correctly. Pearson wants the money, not because his pants were worth millions or that losing his pants cost him millions but because he will only be satisfied if the dry cleaners give him millions. Obviously the American justice system has gone insane if people have to defend themselves in a court room over a lost pair of pants.

Defense attorney Chris Manning portrayed Pearson as a bitter man with financial troubles stemming from a recent divorce who is taking out his anger on a hardworking family.

You think?

More at the Washington Post.

I started reading Fer-De-Lance by Rex Stout. This is, of course, the first book in the Nero Wolfe series of detective novels written by Stout in 1934. Stout was an interesting person. He had strong liberal leanings and was on the original board of the American Civil Liberties Union. In the early 50′s, he was called to appear before Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee but he simply ignored the subpoena.

Anyway, there is a great piece of dialogue early in the book. Archie Goodwin, Wolfe’s assistant, is up in White Plains to talk with a lawyer. The lawyer leaves Archie in his office and Archie starts to get worried that the lawyer has taken off so Archie steps out to talk to the secretary. Archie starts off the conversation with her:

“Would it be much bother to tell me where Mr. Derwin has gone to.”  

“He’s in Mr. Anderson’s office telephoning.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me just for practice?”

“I don’t need any practice, thanks.”

Seventy-three Nero Wolfe mysteries. I’m going to enjoy reading these!

This lovely building is a model of the Infinity Tower which is planned to be built in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The building is planned to be 1,083 feet tall (330 meters) which comes out to 73 stories. The building will be the tallest building in the world with a full 90 degree spiral twist. The original planned completion data was in 2009.

Unfortunately, a problem was encountered during the building of this tower in February. The images below show the problem. The building is to be located right next to a marina and during excavation to build the foundation, a tiny crack appeared in the barrier wall separating the new foundation from the marina. You can see the water coming through the barrier wall in the first two pictures. Picture 3 was taken two minutes after picture 2. All 100 workers were able to evacuate the foundation area before the collapse of the wall. The entire site was completely flooded just four minutes after the leak was first noticed. Work is currently suspended.